Sad · Makki · ayah 63 of 88

Sad 38:63

أَتَّخَذْنَـٰهُمْ سِخْرِيًّا أَمْ زَاغَتْ عَنْهُمُ ٱلْأَبْصَـٰرُ

“Is it [because] we took them in ridicule, or has [our] vision turned away from them?"”

Saheeh International

Essence

Unable to find the believers, the mockers can only guess: our mockery was wrong, or our eyes have slid past them again.

A reflection

Eyes that slide past people

Zāghat is a vivid verb. The Arabs said zāghat al-shams when the sun tipped past noon and the shadows swung to the other side. Zaygh is leaning away from what is straight. A study of near-synonyms adds a sharp detail. Ordinary inclining can lean either way, but zaygh only ever leans away from the truth.

Some early readers hear the phrase as describing the present: our eyes cannot find them here. But another early explanation sees something deeper. They did both, it says. They made these men a laughing-stock, and in the world their eyes slid off them in contempt.

A later commentator presses the grammar further. The ayah says 'the eyes swerved', not 'we turned our eyes away'. It is as if the eye itself spat them out, finding them unpleasant to look at. That, he says, is worse than mockery. A person can be mocked and still be loved and honoured. A person the eye refuses to land on has been erased.

A businessman at a hotel breakfast thanks the manager warmly by name, asks after his children, praises the coffee. A woman in a tabard clears his plate and refills his water three times. He never once lifts his eyes to her face. He would be shocked to be called rude.

That is the gaze this ayah describes. Not cruelty, exactly. Just an eye that slides past certain people the way the noon shadow slides off a wall.

The Quran told the Prophet ﷺ to do the opposite. 'Keep yourself patient with those who call on their Lord morning and evening, seeking His face' (18:28). It continues: 'and let not your eyes pass beyond them'.

So there is a terrible fittingness in this scene. In the world, their eyes slid off these men. In the Fire, their eyes cannot find them at all. The not-seeing they practised became the not-seeing they were left with.

Try a small discipline today. Look at the face of every person who serves you. Say thank you to the eyes, not to the tray.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.